In The Theory of the Modern Stage , leading drama critic, Eric Bentley, brings together landmark writings by dramatists, directors and thinkers who have had a profound effect on the theatre since the mid nineteenth century, from Adolphe Appia to Émile Zola.
Here, Antonin Artaud sets out a manifesto for a Theatre of Cruelty, Bertolt Brecht discusses... more...

First published in 1946, The Playwright as Thinker is a classic work of drama criticism that helped create the intellectual environment in which serious American theater would thrive in the second half of the twentieth century. At the time of publishing, most drama critics believed dramatic art deserved no intellectual status; Eric Bentley set out... more...

WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL Major Palfrey is leaving for the wars, and he tells his two girls, Dinah and Dorinda, to be good while he is gone. But the sisters aren?t sure they can be. As Dorinda explains, ?When we think we are behaving well, some grown-up person says we are really quite bad. It?s difficult to tell which is which.? Sure enough, the... more...

George Bernard Shaw demanded truth and despised convention. He punctured hollow pretensions and smug prudishness?coating his criticism with ingenious and irreverent wit. In Mrs. Warren?s Profession , Arms and the Man , Candida , and Man and Superman , the great playwright satirizes society, military heroism, marriage, and the pursuit of man by... more...